Follow Pete & Nikki as they go back in time with a trolleybus ride, talk about how far they have come in the past five years, and how they make their music and videos for YouTube...

WELL! It had to happen, didn't it? After Pete appearing in Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes, it was inevitable that our intrepid pair would eventually try their hands at using 'Green Screen' technology, - and that is exactly what they are doing.

Thanks to the help of their Techno Guru RICH SMYTH, their photos and films using this technlogy are now Transport them to different lands and even different times!

Just take a look at the green screen photo above, taken in their ACORN FILM STUDIO, and the result obtained by Rich Below...

BELOW: Pete with Green Screen in Sherlock Holmes

WATCH THIS SPACE!!!!

WELCOME TO THE HEADER PAGE OF MOTF INTERNATIONAL

This web site is The Official home of The Magic Oak Tree Family, including all it's parts and factions, Including Switchboard and The Continuing Adventures of Pete & Nikki.

SO! You can either read each page leisurely and then click on to the next page at the bottom of each page, - or you can use the menu at the top of the page to select each facet of The MOTF.

OR! You can skip all that rigmarole and go straight to The Archives, to find out all about the life of Pete and his previous adventures by clicking on to 'Pete's Archives' (amazingly enough!)

It's up to you, so, welcome from us both, and HAPPY READING! (and listening and watching!)

Love & Peace

PETE & NIKKI

XXX﻿

DANCE FOR FUN

present

ROCK, SING, DANCE

Great night at The 'Dance For Fun Show' at the Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage, Herts. Fun, laughter and music, with a special moment when founder Doreen Walker took to the stage, sitting in an armchair, as the kids sang 'Grandma we love you'.

We noticed she was holding 'The Secret of Bedside Manor' by some bloke called Pete Perry! LOL.

There was a rousing finale, with all the cast, not only on stage, but all down the aisles too, and streamers and giant flexible balls were tossed into the crowd to be thrown around. ﻿

Councillor John Lloyd, a long-time supporter of the group was there, as was Deputy Mayor Simon Speller, who's wives were presented with flowers, as was Doreen, and our lovely Nikki. It was FUN FUN FUN!

Dance For Fun have danced at Sadlers Wells Theatre, The Royal Albert Hall, The O2 Arena and Disneyland Paris, to name but a few.﻿

The After-Show Party

Although The Dance For Fun Show couldn't be topped , The After Show Party came pretty close, with Doreen Walker being dragged up on stage, followed by Yours Truly!

(Luckily we didn't get any photos or videos of that particular event! LOL)

I was coerced by The MC to get up and dance along with Doreen on the stage, and I got a few bemused looks!

(Good job I'd had a couple of Pinos by then!)

Afterwards, Lyndsay Walker (pictured below with us) suggested that I do a number on stage with the dancers at the next show!

At least others were also dragged up on stage, - as you can see from the photo above.

WHAT DO YOU RECKON GUYS?

We enjoyed our bucket of wine too! LOL﻿

* * * * * * *

FOR THE RECORD

By Pete Perry

If you believe I am 'following the sheep' in talking about Climate Change, please allow me to put you right...

We now know that high-octane fuel, as used in aircraft, is a worse pollutant even than petrol, and also coal burning, and any other solid fuel. Industrial pollution of our atmospherereally started in earnest, way back at the start of the Industrial Revolution,from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840﻿, when heavy machinery and the first factories began making alloys, by the use of furnaces and steam power.

In fact, when I had to go to work in The London Smogs in the 1950s, (I was 16 years old at the time) you could feel the sulphur burning your lungs. When they introduced the clean air act, I said it hadn't cured the problem, as motor fumes are invisible. My mates said I was talking rubbish, and was making a laughing stock of myself.

HOWEVER! In 1991, almost forty years after I said that, Warren Springs Laboratory, in Stevenage (where I moved to from Walthamstow in 1962), discovered 'Ozone Smog', which is an invisible toxic gas caused by sunlight acting on Motor fumes.

Furthermore, before that, in 1960, when the last trolleybus took it's final journey, to be replaced by the diesel-powered Routemaster, I said it was taking a step backwards, as the electric trolleybus was totally non-pollutant, whereas the Routemaster pumped out carbon-dioxide, nitrous oxide and sulphur dioxide.

Again, I was told I was wrong.

Strange then. that they are now replacing diesel buses with electric ones. Believe it or not, I started worrying about what mankind was doing to this planet whilst experiencing the Blitz in the 1940s, when I was only 6 or 7 years old.

During The Blitz, which I experienced in Walthamstow, London, I wondered why The british were fighting with the Germans, not knowing about the political situation. I also thought about all the damage those people were doing totrees, birds and animals, as well as other humans, including some of my friends at school, who were killed by bombs and doodlebugs.

After the war, I played on the bombsites, and was amazed at how plants soon colonised the wreckage we had created, and started to flower, and bringing back bees and butterflies to London. Then the birds would come back to eat the insects, etc etc.

So you could say I was well ahead of the game when people finally started talking about Climate change in the 1980s. Original MOTF Members will remember, on 'The Wall of Sussitaion' at the start of The MOTF in 1968, I drew 'The Girl With Green Hair', who was crying, because Mankind keeps cutting her green hair, and polluting the planet with toxic fumes.﻿

Suddenly, after many years of Pete Perry warning about pollution, Scientists are beginning to panic about Climate Change.

A new report says:

'With hope dimming that humankind can effectively curb carbon emissions, is it time to strong-arm nature to turn the thermostat down?

To scientists who study geoengineering, this is within the realm of possibility. The idea is to manipulate the climate, by planting millions of trees to clear the air or -- at the other extreme -- creating a mirror of chemicals in the heavens to reflect the sun’s heat away from Earth. Some of the schemes are outlandish, if not downright scary. A small though increasingly vocal band of experts in the field contends the options must at least be explored'.... WELL, IT'S ABOUT TIME!

* * * * * * *

﻿

Pete's story in The Walthamstow Guardian

28th March 2018

* * * * * * *

SAVING FORSTER COUNTRY

(Photograph by BRENDAN FALVEY)

Stevenage Borough Council want to take the Green Belt status off the beautiful Forster Country (Where E M Forster wrote 'HOWARDS END' (which has recently been serialised on BBC 1) and put Housing Estates on the beautiful surrounding countryside.

Pete & Nikki joined a march in Letchworth, Herts, to protest against this, and the further infringement of Green Belt land.

Pete was speaking to the assembly beforehand, and Nikki was dressed as 'The Girl With Green Hair' - that iconic image from The Wall of Sussitation, that inspired the oriognal members of The MOTF in 1968.

The Girl with Green Hair represents Mother Nature, and she has a tear in her eye. The reason she is crying is because humans keep chopping away at her green hair (Trees, shrubs, grass, plants and wild flowers) making it more and more difficult for nature's creatures to make a home for themselves and carry out their natural cycle, and effectively cutting off the ogygen supply that we all need to breathe fresh, clean air...

She is also telling us that one full-grown Oak Tree can have 2.3 MILLION species living in it. This includes birds, insects, tree-dwelling creatures such as squirrels, beneficial bacteria. fungi, moss and host of other lifeforms. So, just imagine - in order to build One House to house One Family, where the Oak Tree Once stood, 2.3 Million species have to be evicted....

Here is where the march is taking place...

PLEASE JOIN US!

SADLY, THE REASON WHY THIS MARCH IS TAKING PLACE IN LETCHWORTH INSTEAD OF STEVENAGE IS THAT WE COULDN'T GET ANY SUPPORT FROM ANYONE IN OUR OWN HOME TOWN.

FORTUNATELY, THE LETCHWORTH GROUP 'SAVE THE WORLD'S FIRST GARDEN CITY' CONTACTED US AND INVITED US ALONG...

The so-called 'Paradise Papers' (or Parasite papers as we prefer to call them) show that large portions of UK cash is stashed away in Tax Havens, so that the Super-Rich can avoid paying the tax that is demanded from the rest of us. Meanwhile, The Government continues to bleed the less well-off with austerity measures, causing millions to have to rely on food banks, whilst at the same time starving the NHS and essential services of cash. There is nothing more 'The Elite' of this country would like better than to return The UK to Dickensian Times.... SPEAK OUT NOW BEFORE IT ALL GETS BURIED AGAIN! Love & Peace from Pete & Nikki

Spurred on by the Influences of KEV CRASE and ROBERT KEMP during the making of THE FAMILY ALBUM, and the continued encouragement and help of RICH SMYTH, FRANK W SWAINE and DAN VALAQUEZ, we are approaching the completion of our very own recording studio, ACORN RECORDING STUDIO, so that we can record talking books and other projects, as well as THE FAMILY ALBUM VOLUME TWO...

Now in business!

On top of all this, there are exciting plans afoot to increase the effect of The MOTF Worldwide, with a new website, blogs, and merchandise... involving original Family Member Frank Swaine and Rich Smyth... Here's a taster of what's to come...﻿

Throughout my life, The Oak Tree and the Long-Eared Owl have played an important part in my life.

When we lived in Walthamstow during The Blitz, every bird seemed to leave London, - except for a long-eared owl that lived in a hollow in a huge old Oak Tree at the bottom of our garden in Brettenham Road.

That memory stayed with me all my life, - but it doesn't end there...

Before our film company, FILMART STUDIOS, formed by myself, Derek Soall and Cyril Smith, settled upon that name, we tried out various names for our company.

Firstly it was my idea to call it CAREFREE CARTOONS (see picture) and then THREE OAKS was suggested by Cyril, ( who worked at Halas and Batchelor who made the feature-length cartoon film 'Animal Farm') and finally, FILMART STUDIOS was suggested by Derek (who worked at Pearl and Dean, who made most of the cinema adverts of the time)

When I moved from Walthamstow to Stevenage in Hertfordshire with my wife Dorothy in 1963, we lived at 22 Longfields, which was in the OAKS CROSS area. Even the name Stevenage is significant.

Stevenage began as a Saxon village in 7th Century Hertfordshire. It was called Stith ac, which means strong oak. In those days trees were used as meeting places and perhaps one large oak used in that way gave Stevenage its name. ﻿

Whilst at our home in Longfields, we were often visited in the garden (above) by a Long-Eared Owl, as though it were still protecting us, and when we moved to Great Offley, where I was Garden Steward at Offley Place, there was a large Oak Tree in the field behind our cottage, and another in the grounds by Offley Place, which was, at the time, a training college.

(See picture, left, of Vivien in The Rose Garden)

Also, at the extensive gardens that I maintained on the estate was often visited by - yes, you've guessed it, - a LONG-EARED OWL, which lived in the Oak Tree!

From Offley, we moved to Blackpool, Lancs, where my first wife, Dorothy, hailed from. She wanted to be near her father, who had recently had a heart attack.

I took on a top job on Blackpool Corporation, in charge of a gang of three men, where we created carpet bedding schemes, and created a woodland garden, which featured a huge oak tree, in which lived - a long-eared owl!

Ironically, considering we had moved there out of concern for her father, Dorothy died suddenly in June of that year, soon after I had finished the woodland garden (See picture, Left: The last picture taken of Dorothy and our daughters in the woodland garden, May, 1967, a month before she died)

Apart from being devastated at her death at the age of only 31, I was left to bring up my two little daughters on my own for four years, apart from a few months, where firstly, my two sisters helped out by looking after them whilst I moved from Blackpool back to Walthamstow, and then on to Stevenage, and taking them on holiday, which I could not afford to do myself, and a month when I fell ill, and our friends and ex neigbours Marjorie and KenGollop cared for them.

Moving back to Stevenage, I set out on a four-year campaign with local MP of the time, Mrs Shirley Williams, (see picture, left) to introduce a One Parent Family Allowance, so that other single parents wouldn't have to struggle as I had done.

I pointed out that, at that time, if a woman was widowed, she recieved a widows pension, whereas a man left with children rto raise,got nothing, as The State assumed his family would look after his children whilst he went out to work to earn money.

I was not prepared to do that, as I wanted to bring my OWN children up, and Mrs Williams admired me for that, and set up a working committe, whilst I wrote reams and reams of information for them to sift through.

I even explained how difficult it was for me, with two little daughters to get them to a toilet whilst out shopping, (Do I take them into the Gents, or wait outside the Ladies, and ask a woman to take them in? Either way, it would be risky!) and so I suggested 'Baby Changing Rooms', available for parents of either gender, in every shopping centre.

Since then, these basic facilities are available all over the world (see picture, Left, of such a facility in Iceland.)

Ironically, these came into effect in 1972, soon after I married for the second time!

Whilst in Stevenage, in 1968, a teenage member of my gang on Stevenage Corporation, Philip Undrell, took an interest in my problems, and offered to help me clean my council house up at 39 The Oundle, (which again, was in the OAKS CROSS area of Stevenage) as the previous tenants had done a 'moonlight flit!'

He brought his friends, Roger Moores and Alan 'George' Nash around to help, and very soon, as the news spread that a 31-year wise old hippy had moved into Stevenage, dozens of young people turned up for advice on drugs and other personal matters, and to help me out with the children as a thank you.

After a few months, one of them suggested that, as we were like a family, we should call ourselves THE MAGIC OAK TREE FAMILY, and spread my philosophy on compassion, the environment and World Peace to as many people as we can, and to help people out, as we all helped each other. I came up with a symbol for the newly-formed family (See picture, left).

I also drew a mural on the largest wall in the living room, and mambers of 'The Family' helped me paint it in. I was full of meaningful symbols to do with The Family philosophy...

﻿

Soon after The MOTF was formed, one of the members remarked 'Wouldn't it be great if wecould turn the whole World into one big Family, and end Hatred, Jealousy, Greed, Envy, Prejudice and War forever, and bring Love & Peace to The World?'

Since then, and with the help of The Internet, The MAGIC OAK TREE FAMILY (MOTF) now has members all over the World.

Soon after I moved in with Nikki at her small flat, we moved to a larger flat in OAKS CROSS, before finally moving to our present address, where a small OAK TREE SAPLING was growing (a new start maybe?)

Now, - moving on to the present time... ﻿

Whilst in Lister Hospital Stevenage awaiting an Angiogram after a heart attack, I was getting somewhat fed up, as my procedure had been delayed twice.

One morning, I unplugged myself from the monitor and wandered over to the window of the ward.

THERE, ACROSS FROM THE HOSPITAL, I SAW A LONG-EARED OWL SITTING IN AN OAK TREE!

I texted Nikki to tell her about it, and she agreed that this was a good omen.

Soon after I had read her text, a member of the Cardiac team came over to me and told me that I was going down to the cardiac suite, - and this time, it would DEFINITELY proceed!

I was discharged to go home the next day, after a full week in hospital!

BELIEVE WHAT YOU WILL, BUT I KNOW THAT SOMEHOW, THE OAK TREE AND THE OWL HAVE A HUGE INFLUENCE ON MY LIFE, AND GUIDE ME ON, AGAINST ALL OPPOSITION...

ABOVE: Pete in The Sixties, when he weighed only SIX STONE!

LOVE & PEACE TO ALL

XXX

* * * * * * *

KIDS PLAYING WITH MATCHES -

That is the way I see the Human Race,

- AND THIS IS WHY...

* * * * * * *

I was born into a world where one World War (The first) had ended just 19 years previously, and the Second World War was about to begin in just another two years.

King Edward Vlll had abdicated, and his younger brother Bertie (George Vl, see picture on the right) had been thrust into the role of King.

So I was born into this world of uncertainty, in the middle of The Great Depression, which was world-wide.

In this country, across Europe and in The USA, people couldn't find work, and the poor had to rely upon hand-outs and soup kitchens. (Sound familar?)

Indeed, things were so bad for my parents and two older sisters, that when my mother discovered that she was pregnant in August 1936, she tried to abort me, and even fell down the stairs, as she was so weak with hunger, weighing only six stones!

Despite this, I hung on and was born 10 months later on 30th June 1937, weighing in at 10 lbs, which almost killed my mother. (There was no NHS in those days!)

In the First World War, they had started bombing cities in The UK with Airships, and in the Second World War, they had developed the V1 Flying Bombs, and the V2 Rockets.

It ended with The USA dropping of The Atom Bomb on Hiroshima, and everyone was horrified at the sheer atrocity of its destruction, as nobody was really sure how powerful this evil weapon really was!

KIDS PLAYING WITH MATCHES!

We have mined the good Earth for precious metals, precious stones, chalk, slate, coal, peat, and other so-called 'Natural Resources', without knowing why Nature laid them down in into the good Earth the first place, - and we wonder why the holes we leave behind under our feet collapse, and sink holes open up in motorways and on housing estates after periods of heavy rainfall!

KIDS PLAYING WITH MATCHES!

We are extracting every ounce of crude oil and gas from rocks beneath our feet, and deep in the sea bed, - again, without knowing why Nature took billions of years to turn rotting vegetation and animal remains into what we child-like and petulant Humans call 'Natural Resources' - as though it was put there for our sole use. IT WASN'T!

WHAT IF IT WAS ACTUALLY PUT THERE FOR SOME GREATER PURPOSE, SUCH AS - TO PROTECT THE EARTH FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, OR TO LUBRICATE THE CONTINENTAL TECTONIC PLATESTO PREVENT SUPER-EARTHQUAKES?

A BIT LATE NOW, ISN'T IT?

KIDS PLAYING WITH MATCHES!

Not only do we burn oil in the form of petrol in our motor vehicles and other forms of machinery, we also turn other by-products into plastic, which never rots, and chokes animals and birds to death when they become entangled in it.

We also allow it to spill it out to sea and in our rivers, coating sea creatures and sea birds in crude oil and threatening their very existence- so not only are we using up something which nature may have had a Grand Plan for, we are also polluting our air, oceans and rivers into the bargain, - and killing our fellow creatures on this planet...

KIDS PLAYING WITH MATCHES!

Politicians, after they have been found out misbehaving, or making genuine mistakes, have a habit of re-iterating that old worn-out phrase, 'There are lessons to be learned'. Well, - that is all very well and good if, indeed, they DID learn lessons from their mistakes and misdemeanors.

The trouble is, they never DO!!

We have suffered air, water and soil pollution through the misuse of oil and other chemicals, we have caused suffering and even death from oil-soaked wildlife, whilst the practice of fracking, common in The USA has been proved to cause earthquakes, as well as water pollution - AND YET POLITICIANS, INCLUDING THE UK GOVERNMENT, INSIST THAT FRACKING IS THE 'ONLY WAY FORWARD\!'